


midnight hour

by kgeoi (0pia)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attack on High School Castes, Canonical Character Death, EMA Friendship, F/M, Fridge Horror, Halloween, Haunted Houses, I promise this is mostly light-hearted, Minor Character Death, Modern Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan, Off-screen Character Death, One Shot, POV Eren Yeager, Post-High School, Queen Bee Historia Reiss, Shingeki no School Caste
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:21:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27244888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0pia/pseuds/kgeoi
Summary: “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Armin asks.Jean is adamant. “Positive.”The three of them - Eren, Armin and Mikasa - are standing outside the parking lot of the town’s biggest haunted theme park. Jean is refusing to leave the safety of the driver's seat.Eren can’t help but needle him. “You’re still scared of this kind of shit?”
Relationships: Krista Lenz | Historia Reiss/Eren Yeager
Comments: 8
Kudos: 92





	midnight hour

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Armin asks.

Jean is adamant. “Positive.” 

The three of them - Eren, Armin and Mikasa - are standing outside the parking lot of the town’s biggest haunted attraction park. Jean is refusing to leave the safety of the driver's seat. 

Eren can’t help but needle him. “You’re still scared of this kind of shit?” 

“I have better things to do, you know,” Jean sneers back. 

“Yeah, like what?” 

“Eren,” Armin nudges him in the side. He is probably sick of them bickering on the entire ride over. Or he is worried Eren will _really_ piss Jean off, and they won’t get a ride home tonight. Jean is the only one of them who has a car, even if it is technically his mum’s. 

“Thanks for dropping us off, Jean,” Mikasa says graciously. She gives Eren a pointed look, which he rolls his eyes at. 

Jean is a little red. “You’ll be done around midnight, right?” 

“I think so,” Armin replies as he checks his watch. Eren can see it is almost 10 pm. “Thanks again for this.” 

Eren only raises a hand in acknowledgement as he walks away from the car. Back in high school, Jean had been a wannabe delinquent, picking fights with him and Armin for no real reason. He had only started to hang out with them in college once he had truly fallen head over heels for Mikasa and realised that bothering her two best friends probably wasn’t the most effective way to get her to return his feelings. Eren is under no illusion that Jean did any favours for his sake.

Once Jean’s off-white Prius has peeled out of the car park, Armin and Mikasa catch up to him. 

“This place hasn’t changed at all,” Armin remarks. The three of them have already been here twice before, both times for Mikasa’s birthday. 

Mikasa’s eyes are gleaming. “I heard they’ve finally opened up the asylum and the cornfield maze. ” Even now, as a university student, she still has a keen interest in the occult. 

But when Eren thinks about it, neither Armin nor himself changed much in the years after high school. Armin is still an overachieving nerd, obsessed with PC gaming and anime. And Eren? He still has no dreams and no ambitions. A nobody going nowhere, trapped in a suffocating small town. 

Privately, he hopes this night is over soon.

* * *

Most people have shown up tonight dressed in Halloween costumes, including his friends.

Mikasa’s costume isn’t much different from her usual goth attire, but she has added a large black witch’s hat, decorated with different kinds of flowers, to her ensemble. Armin, most likely at Mikasa’s insistence, has wrapped bandages around most of his body. The ones wrapped around his legs have started to come undone - Armin is almost definitely going to trip over before the night is done. 

As usual, Eren forgot to bring a costume. He doesn’t really see the point though - how are they supposed to tell the difference between the staff at the haunted park and the attendees if everyone is in costume? All the same, he feels a little out of place.

As they are standing in line at reception, Eren notices a familiar face off to the side. 

“Annie!” he calls out in surprise.

Like Jean, Annie had also been a troublemaker in high school, although she would never acknowledge Jean as a fellow delinquent. Eren had only grown close with her in recent years when he found out they attend the same local boxing club. 

Even more shocking than Annie’s presence is the fact she is actually wearing a costume: a headband with floppy ears and over-sized padded paws over her hands. 

“No costume?” Annie remarks, eyeing his plain T-shirt and jeans. 

“I’m surprised you’re wearing one,” Eren replies. He would have thought Annie considered herself above childish holidays. “What the hell are you supposed to be, anyway?”

“A cat,” she lazily flicks one of her over-sized paws at him. “Hitch picked it out for me.”

“Right.” Of course it was Hitch - Annie is surprisingly compliant these days when it comes to her friend. Maybe it is only Eren and his closest friends who have not changed since high school. He couldn’t have imagined the loner Annie willingly hanging out with Hitch, one of the popular wannabes, back then. 

Annie is distracted from their conversation by something. Eren follows her gaze to a nearby pumpkin decoration. “Here, put this on.”

“What-” Annie has already grabbed the plastic pumpkin and placed it over his head. 

“It’s your costume.” 

“Why do I have to do this,” Eren groans. His voice echoes loudly inside the interior of the pumpkin. “Isn’t this stealing?” 

“If I’m not above this, then neither are you,” Annie answers. “It fits surprisingly well.”

Eren disagrees - the pumpkin had been made to house a large light bulb, not a human head. It is uncomfortably tight around his neck and the top of his head. Plus, it smells weird. “I’m not sure if I can even get this off my head now…” 

Annie is dismissive. “Worry about that later. Now you fit in.”

“Why do I have to fit in?” 

Their bickering is interrupted by Hitch’s timely return from the bathroom. 

“Nice costume, Eren!” Hitch peers at him. “That is you, right?”

Eren sighs. He wishes it wasn’t. “It’s me.”

“Well, fancy seeing you here at the most haunted place in town! Annie always said you were the brave kind of guy, though, so this is probably nothing to you.” 

“She did?” Eren turns to Annie, whose face is as impassive as stone. He never thought Annie held a particularly high opinion of him. 

Hitch laughs. “So, who do you think will scream first, Annie or me?” 

“Definitely you,” Eren replies. He shrugs in response to Hitch’s mock affronted expression. “I’m not dumb enough to bet against Annie.” If anything, Annie would probably be laughing the entire time. 

“You’re overestimating me,” Annie says, to his surprise. “I have a maiden’s heart, you know... It’s not like I don’t feel anything being here.” 

“It’s true - I practically had to drag her here tonight,” Hitch says. 

Eren rolls his eyes. “I doubt that,” he looks back to Armin and Mikasa, who are still waiting in line. “Why did you guys come here tonight, of all nights?” The place is packed, brimming with Halloween goers eager to be frightened out of their minds. 

Hitch laughs. “Didn’t you know? Half of our old year is working here tonight. Some kind of casual work. Heh, remind me to make fun of Marlowe and Floch when I see them.” 

Eren groans to himself. He hadn’t known that half of his old classmates would be here. Mikasa had only wanted to come here for her yearly Halloween fix. He hadn’t counted on an impromptu high school reunion. 

“Well, we should be off! See you around, Eren.” Hitch says cheerfully. She turns to Annie. “Hey, Annie, where first? The haunted house? The asylum?” Their voices fade away as the two girls exit the reception, leaving Eren on his own. 

Not too long later, Armin and Mikasa return with their concession bands and a collection of snacks. 

“Thanks,” Eren says as he accepts the band and a half-melted frozen Coke. It tastes sickly and saccharine on his tongue - he doesn’t know what he expected.

“Did you see Bertholdt at reception, Eren? Bertholdt Hoover?” Armin asks once they are out of earshot. He needn’t have worried someone might overhear; the room is loud with conversation and tacky Halloween music blaring out of the speakers. 

“Huh, I thought he left town as soon as high school ended,” Eren muses. He looks over his shoulder, back to the reception desk. Sure enough, he recognises the tall young man. Bertholdt had always hung around the popular crowd, but Eren had always gotten the impression that he was Reiner’s personal assistant more than anything else. 

Mikasa shrugs. “I guess he came back.” Bertholdt looks miserable, but Eren supposes no one would be happy in a room with a broken AC filled with obnoxious high schoolers and college students. 

Armin scrutinises the map he grabbed earlier from the desk. “So, where should we go first?”

* * *

They end up visiting the haunted house first. 

Armin and Mikasa both spend the entire time clinging to his arm, though he suspects Mikasa is going along with the show more than experiencing any actual fear. The jump scares are lame, but Eren has to admit the costumes are pretty good. They have certainly improved since the last time he came, at least.

He recognises both Ymir and Sasha from high school underneath their stage makeup. The former in particular seems to be having a little bit too much fun scaring the living daylights out of people while dressed as a demon. Or Darth Maul from _Star Wars_ , Eren can’t really tell. 

Armin has his eyes squeezed shut by the time they reach the hall of mirrors. “Are we nearly finished?” 

“I think so,” Eren replies. Since this is their third time coming here, he might have thought Armin would last the night without shutting his eyes. It’s a good thing Eren isn’t a betting man. 

Though, it's not like he blames Armin for being so cowardly. The last room they were in was some kind of twisted child's nursery, filled with mechanical dolls that sang in strangely pitched voices. Eren was a little unnerved, so he might have walked a little bit faster through that particular room. Maybe. 

Still, for a Halloween special event, Eren isn’t particularly impressed.

* * *

“I don’t know, maybe we should skip the asylum...” Armin trails off. 

“You aren’t enjoying this?” Eren asks. The three of them are standing outside again, having just finished the haunted house. Earlier, Eren had taken off his pumpkin to catch his breath but he can’t remember where he put it now.

“No, I am!” Armin insists. “I just... you know that there used to be an actual asylum here, right?”

“That’s right,” Mikasa says. “It only got shut down twenty years ago. Apparently, you used to be able to hear the patients screaming at night…”

Armin is more than a little freaked out now. Eren can practically hear him shaking. “I’m just saying, it’s getting late. Maybe we should go to the cornfields before everything shuts!” 

“Sure.” 

Armin hangs his head, embarrassed. “Sorry, guys.” 

“You don’t have to apologise for anything,” Eren says. ‘Abandoned mental hospital’ isn’t exactly his idea of creepy fun, either. 

“That’s right,” Mikasa agrees.

* * *

By the time they reach the cornfields, night has truly fallen. Out in the country, without light pollution from the city, Eren can see entire constellations in the night sky. It’s beautiful. 

Outside the maze entrance, Connie checks their wrists for their concession before letting them pass. They exchange grins - he had always been on good terms with Connie, the resident slacker, in high school. The three of them enter the fields.

Compared to the constant screams of the haunted house, the maze is dead silent. It is a relief to Eren’s much-abused ears. In front of him, he can tell Armin has calmed down a little, too. 

After a few minutes though, Eren starts to think things are a little too quiet. 

“You know, this is nice, walking out here at night,” Armin says, unaware of Eren’s growing trepidation. “The quiet, the stars… maybe we don’t appreciate nature enough these days.” 

The sound of a chainsaw rips through the air. 

Eren jerks around just in time. A man in a welding mask is charging right at them with a bloody chainsaw. 

“RUN!” Armin screams. 

The three of them sprint as fast as they can, kicking up clouds of dust behind him. Eren’s heart is thumping in his chest. For a second, he has to remind himself that none of this is real. 

“Hey! Why are you running?!” the masked man bellows as he chases after them. 

Eren knew that voice... it takes a moment before it hits him. He looks back over his shoulder, slowing down a fraction. There was no denying the large physique. Reiner Braun, their old high school quarterback, is chasing after them with a chainsaw.

“Hey, guys!” Eren turns back to tell his friends, but both Mikasa and Armin have vanished. They must have run ahead of him. 

Fuck. Eren doesn’t know what direction they had run in. He is quickly coming up to a fork in the path, and Reiner is still chasing him. On impulse, he bolts to the left. 

Suddenly, hands grab at his wrist and Eren is dragged into the corn hedge. He yelps.

“Hey-” his voice is cut off by a hand clamped over his mouth. He can feel something sharp at his throat - a knife. 

“Shut up!” his assailant hisses. 

On instinct, Eren swings his elbow back. It sails over the stranger’s head. Belatedly, he recognises the voice. He had forgotten how tiny Historia Reiss was. 

A few seconds later, Reiner barrels past the hedge they are hidden in. Both Eren and Historia stay silent until he has vanished around another corner.

“So, your friends left you alone,” Historia’s breath is hot on his neck. Eren can’t help the involuntary shiver that runs up his spine. 

He remembers Historia Reiss. The Queen Bee of their high school, Eren had memorably been caught in the cross hairs of her schemes before. But for the majority of the time, they had moved in different circles. Mostly, Eren remembers how bored she seemed. They had that in common. 

Eren also remembers that her parents were mega rich. Which makes him wonder why Historia is working a part-time gig in the middle of Halloween right now, instead of attending some up-and-coming socialite party. 

“I guess,” Eren mumbles around her fingers. Her other arm, the one holding the knife, wraps right around his torso, restraining him in place. He’s never been so close to her in his life. 

“Are you going to scream, Eren?” she teases. 

Eren knows he can tell her to stop at any time. He doesn’t. “Do you want me to scream?” 

“Hmm...” Historia considers it. “Let’s wait for your friends to come back.” 

They fall into silence. He can hear screams and the sound of a chainsaw in the distance. 

“Did you know someone in our year died here?” Historia whispers suddenly. 

“What?” Eren is startled. “ _Here_ , in the fields?” 

“Yeah. Did you know him? Marco Bott?” 

Eren had almost completely forgotten that name. “Yeah, I did,” he swallows roughly. He had known Marco in the first year of high school. As a fellow nerd, he was more Armin’s friend than Eren’s, but Eren had always gotten along well with him. Until one day, halfway through the school year, when the teachers announced that Marco had died in a freak accident. “I didn’t know he died here, though...” 

Historia hums. “I never knew him, but my uncle had a friend in the police. Said he was cut in half, like he had been mauled by a wild animal.” 

Eren is horrified. He feels a sinking feeling low in his stomach. Jean and Marco also had an odd friendship, back then. Did Jean know that Marco died here? Shit, maybe he was kind of an asshole to Jean back in the car park. 

“They never caught whoever did it,” Historia continues. “Creepy, right?” 

“They told us it was an accident…” But if what Historia said about Marco being torn apart was true, then that couldn’t have been the case. There were no wild animals in their town that could have done that to him, like a bear or a wolf. Someone killed Marco, maybe someone he knew.

That someone had probably left town a long time ago, though. 

He can feel Historia leaning her head against his back. “Do you think he’s watching us right now, Eren?” 

“Not really. I think when you die, that’s it,” Eren replies bluntly. “If he was watching us, he’d be pretty bored, don’t you think?” He wonders why he’s having this conversation in the middle of a cornfield. 

“You’re right. He’d be more entertained watching ants.” 

Nearby, he can hear Armin and Mikasa approaching. Historia tenses behind him. 

“Eren! Where are you!” Armin is despondent. “Why does he always leave us behind...” 

“Eren!” Mikasa calls out.

Historia doesn’t give him any warning before he is pushed out of the cornrow. Eren stumbles as Historia bursts out behind him, holding the knife and screaming at the top of her lungs. 

Armin and Mikasa screech in terror at the sight of her. They lunge forward, grab each of Eren’s hands and sprint away.

Behind him, Eren can hear Historia laughing like a maniac. He catches a glimpse of her costume as he runs - a corpse bride, wearing a bloodstained wedding dress. The butcher’s knife in her hand gleams dull in the moonlight, plastic. 

Once they have escaped a safe distance, Armin slows down to a stop. He pants heavily. “Was - was that Historia?”

“Yeah...” Eren can’t stop thinking about what she said to him. The scent of her perfume still lingers on his clothes. 

“I can’t believe you left us alone!” Armin complains. “That chainsaw guy found us again - I had to throw my drink bottle at him so he wouldn’t catch me!”

Eren is bemused. “I don’t think you’re supposed to throw things at the employees… they’re only doing their jobs.” There is something amusing about the thought of Armin braining Reiner with a water bottle, though.

Armin shakes his head. “I know… I missed anyway,” Eren had forgotten how atrocious his aim was. “We have to be near the end now, right? I hope no one else bothers us...”

By saying that, Armin practically tempted fate then. Behind them, the familiar sound of the chainsaw starts up again. The three of them jump an inch in their skins.

“ _Why won’t you leave us alone_!” Armin wails as Reiner once again chases them through the maze. 

Eren is screaming as he runs, caught somewhere between terror and exhilaration.

* * *

By the time they clear the maze, it is almost midnight. The employees are already packing up, ready to go home after a long shift. When Eren looks down, he notices his dark jeans and sneakers are completely covered in dust from the cornfields. Great, he thinks. 

“I thought we were never going to get out of there,” Mikasa mutters to herself. 

Armin has perked up again. “We did it in the end, though. Do you guys want to grab some more food before reception closes?”

“Sure,” Eren’s stomach is starting to grumble. It has been hours since they had pizza for dinner.

They end up being Bertholdt’s last customers for the night. After a full shift, Bertholdt looks dead inside as he hands them their change. Eren is surprised he hasn’t fallen asleep at the desk. 

The three of them settle on the benches outside reception, eating their snacks as they wait for Jean to return. 

“What was your favourite part, Armin?” Mikasa asks. She is oddly cheerful - clearly, she had a lot of fun tonight. 

“I liked the air hockey table in reception…” Armin answers with a wince. “Sorry. These places always freak me out.” 

“Well, thanks for coming with us again anyway,” Mikasa replies, sympathetic. She turns to Eren. “Did you enjoy yourself, Eren?”

Eren remembers starting the night feeling bored out of his mind and wanting to go home as soon as possible. When did that start to change?

Above them, the full moon has disappeared behind a sea of clouds. The artificial lights begin to turn off around them as the park shuts down for the night. Everything is much darker all of a sudden. 

“Jean’s late,” Eren grumbles. The employees are giving them odd looks as they leave one by one in their cars. 

Armin looks a little anxious. “He isn’t picking up his phone. What if something happened?”

Eren isn't worried. Most likely, Jean had gotten into another argument with his mum and was running late because of it. “It’s still early. Don’t worry.”

Twenty minutes later, and Eren is starting to get really annoyed. If Jean had forgotten about them, he was going to get his ass beaten when Eren found him. He wonders if he should call a taxi, if the taxis even went this far out of town.

“You guys are still here?”

Eren looks up from his seat to find Historia staring down at him. Her face is clean of stage makeup now, and she is dressed in a cute summer dress. She looks absurdly normal.

“Are you waiting for your ride, too?” Eren asks. 

“I was supposed to get a ride with my sister, but-“ She stops herself, looking impassive. 

He is surprised that she hadn’t asked either Reiner or Ymir for a lift. Maybe they had left before she could? “You want to come with us when Jean gets here?” If Jean ever decides to show up. 

“Sure,” Historia says. She settles on a bench beside him and sighs loudly.

Jean shows up a few minutes later, saving everyone from the awkward conversation between people who barely knew each other in high school. 

Mikasa takes the front seat while Eren, Armin and Historia pile into the cramped backseat. He had forgotten Jean’s shitty Prius didn’t have a middle seat.

“Uh…” 

“Budge over, Eren,” Historia says. He does as she says, but instead of squeezing into the small space between the car door and Eren’s thigh, she makes herself comfortable on his lap. 

Historia catches his scandalised expression in the rear vision mirror. “What, you’d rather I curl up in the car boot?” 

Clearly lap privileges weren’t offered to Jean or Armin. “I don’t mind.” he flicks his gaze back to Jean. “You took your time, didn’t you?”

“Just be grateful I showed up at all,” Jean snaps back. “You think I enjoy riding out here in the middle of the night?!” 

Eren remembers Marco and shuts his mouth. Whether Jean already knew or not, it doesn't really matter. He can privately admit to himself that it was pretty cool of Jean to pick them up at this hour, regardless of his intentions. 

The car ride is mostly silent, with his friends clearly feeling too awkward to make any long conversation with the former Queen Bee. Eren appreciates the silence as he stares out the window. Historia feels warm against him, even through layers of clothes, and he can smell her perfume again, something light and flowery. It’s nice. 

Out of the four of them, Historia is the first to be dropped off. Eren remembers that the Reiss family live on the opposite side of town from everyone else, in a huge estate surrounded by acres of farm and woodland. Until now, Eren has only ever seen it from a distance. The Prius slides to a halt outside the wrought iron gates. None of the lights in the main house are on. 

“Walk me to the front door?” Historia says coyly, as she climbs off of his lap.

Eren can feel the stares of his friends burning a hole in the back of his skull. He ignores them. “Sure.”

It is a short walk past the gates to the main house. Outside the car, the air is colder, brisker, and it wakes Eren up a little. The only sound he can hear is the clicking of Historia’s heels against the driveway. Even with heels on, she barely passes his shoulders. 

“It’s weird,” she comments, out of the blue. 

“What’s weird?”

“Back in the cornfield, the way you were acting,” Historia says. “It was the first time I’ve ever seen you look alive.” 

Eren remembers the feeling of the knife at his throat, a warm body pressed tight against his back. “This town is usually pretty boring, right?” 

“Maybe a little less boring, since you’re living in it,” Historia stands on her tiptoes to give Eren a soft kiss against his cheek. “Thanks for dropping me home.” 

Eren stands still, dumbfounded for a few seconds as Historia walks up to the doorstep and disappears inside her house. He turns back to his gawking friends waiting in the car. 

Maybe tonight wasn’t a total waste of time.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween 2020 everybody.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading!


End file.
